Re: ( OT ) "The British technology pioneers who helped win World War Two"

I remember hearing about the bouncing bomb raids on the BBC at the time.
I was then serving in the War Office but did not need to know about this 
so never heard a word in the office.
Unfortunately, I believe that the damage done by the bomb to the German 
War effort was slight, according to a post-War enquiry.  Electric power 
was switched to the Ruhr's arms factories from undamaged sectors of the 
German Power Grid.
Can anyone confirm or deny this old man's unreliable reminiscences?

                    With best wishes from
Guy ff. Bellairs, Chartered Electrical Engineer
                 E-mail:  [email protected]
                Skype: gbellairs (Portugal)

Estrada Monumental, 285   9000-250 FUNCHAL
                      MADEIRA {Portugal]
Tel:  /351 291 764644       Fax: /351 291 764644

                         *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *



Martin Postranecky wrote:
>  
> 
> from THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, 01 November 2006 :
> 
> 'We must use science to defeat al-Qa'eda'
> -----------------------------------------
> 
> By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
> 
> John Reid yesterday compared the technological advances needed to fight 
> Islamic terrorism to Britain's battle against the Nazis.
> The Home Secretary invoked the spirit of great wartime scientists like 
> Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb, as he spoke of the 
> "enduring struggles" facing the country.
> Mr Reid said he was setting up a taskforce drawn from business and the 
> academic world to pool ideas that would keep one step ahead of 
> al-Qa'eda, which is increasingly sophisticated in its use of computers 
> and weaponry.
> "It is a race between those who would find the weaknesses in our defences 
> and use that to wreak havoc on our society; and those of us involved in a 
> constant search to defend our country, our freedoms and our democracy," 
> he said in London. "Just as the innovators Barnes Wallis, Alan Turing 
> and Tommy Flowers were vital in our battle to beat the Nazis, so now we 
> must be able to utilise the skills and expertise of all in our battle 
> against terror."
> The comparison of the counter-terrorist campaign with the Second World War 
> marks a step change in the rhetoric being deployed by ministers about the 
> nature of the threat..../snip/
> 
> see ( wrap ! ) :
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml
> ;jsessionid=JPL1JXX3RT2NTQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ureid4001.xml
> 
> plus also in :
> 
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2431567.html
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-2431567-10,00.html
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1936136,00.html
> http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1945777.ece
> http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail_pa.html?sku=11623147803055624-H6
> 
> 
> "Who were they ?"
> -----------------
> 
> By Philip Johnston
> 
> The British technology pioneers who helped win World War Two
> 
> Sir Barnes Wallis worked for Vickers-Armstrong at Brooklands, Surrey, 
> during the Second World War when he came up with the design of the 
> bouncing bomb. It was a variety of depth charge used to attack 
> heavily-defended dams in Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley. The mission, 
> in May 1943 and led by Guy Gibson VC, was immortalised in the film, The 
> Dambusters.
> Wallis's idea came to him from his awareness that Royal Navy sailors in 
> the 19th century had observed that cannonballs sometimes bounced on water 
> which increased their range. Initially he intended that the bomb should be 
> used to attack battleships instead of torpedoes but it was developed to 
> attack the Ruhr dams which could not otherwise be reached. and which 
> needed a massive explosion to destroy.
> The bomb was designed to be spun backwards at high velocity before being 
> released. It then literally bounced over the water (avoiding the torpedo 
> nets) in the same way that a spinning stone will skip.
> However, to achieve this effect the bomb had to be released with the 
> utmost precision, from a low height, a specific speed and at an exact 
> distance. Out of the six intended targets, four were damaged and two were 
> destroyed.
> He died in 1979 aged 92.
> 
> 
> Alan Turing is sometimes called the father of modern computer science.
> A gifted mathematician, logician and cryptographer, he worked at Bletchley 
> Park, the top secret codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire during the 
> war.
> For a time, he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German Naval 
> cryptanalysis.
> Turing was the key figure in the continual battle to decode messages 
> encrypted by the increasingly complex Enigma machines. He devised a number 
> of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the bombe, an 
> electromechanical machine which could find settings for the Enigma.
> The periods when the Naval code could be broken saw dramatic reductions in 
> the shipping losses from the Atlantic convoys so essential to the conduct 
> of the Allied war effort.
> He died through an apparent suicide in 1954, aged 41.
> 
> 
> Tommy Flowers was a British engineer who designed Colossus, the first 
> digital, programmable, electronic computer.
> With a degree in electrical engineering from London University, he joined 
> the telecommunications branch of the General Post Office (GPO), and worked 
> in its research station exploring the use of electronics for telephone 
> exchanges.
> His knowledge of switching electronics would prove crucial for his 
> computer design in the war. Like Turing, he was worked on breaking a 
> teletype-based cipher that was even more complex than the Enigma system.
> The decoding procedure involved trying so many possibilities that it was 
> impractical to do by hand.
> In February 1943, Flowers proposed an electronic system (Colossus) using 
> 1500 valves which operated five times faster and was more flexible than 
> the previous system, code-named Heath Robinson, that used 
> electro-mechanical switches.
> Ten Colossus machines were completed and used in British decoding efforts. 
> For his efforts, Flowers received only limited recognition, an MBE and 
> £1,000.
> After the war, Flowers returned to the Post Office Research Station where 
> he was head of the Switching Division.
> He died in 1999 aged 94. 
> 
> 
> see ( wrap ! ) :
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml       
> ;jsessionid=JPL1JXX3RT2NTQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/11/01/ureid4002.xml
>